In Wish You Weren’t Here (And I Feel Fine) the artist revisits the famous Turkish Market in the Kreuzberg district, Berlin at end of April during the coronavirus pandemic. In this video performance she wears a self-made mask out of linen, Korean hemp (sambe) stitched with her own hair which spells “THE OTHER.” Sambe is a Korean weaved fibre, and has been used for all traditional funeral clothing since the Japanese colonial period. Hearing RHEE’s whispered lyrics of the R.E.M. song, It’s the End of the World as We Know It, we accompany her through the length of the market, filled with customers trying to go about their everyday life.
Exhibitions
The COVID-19 Diaries: The New Normal, curated by Grace Noh and Yichen Zhou, MiA Collective, New York/Beijing